Raising money for cancer research without - hopefully- running.

May 03, 2007

Important business

You'll be wanting to know how the fake tan is coming along this year. We are now into Day Three of this year's trial. I have, of course, been using fake tan mousses, sprays and creams for much longer than I've had cancer, but it's indicative of my status as a trial babe that I have probably tried every fake tanning system on the market, long before I ever volunteered for the numerous cancer trials I have now racked up.

In previous years it's always been my mantra that only the Estee Lauder fake tan spray works at all well, and with a minimum of peculiar smell. But this year my shopping outings are so restricted I only ever get to the local chemist, so I'm trialling L'Oreal, L'Oreal and Boots. Namely, L'Oreal Sublime Bronze Airbrush Effect; L'Oreal Sublime Bronze Multi Position anti-streaking self-tan spray, and Boots' Holiday Glow Body Lotion with all day moisturiser.

Well, I should say I attempted to try out L'Oreal Multi Position blah, blah, blah, but I couldn't get the little spray mechanism at the top to work at all. So that left the Sublime Bronze airbrush effect, which had absolutely no effect at all for two long days but is now finally penetrating the chalky layers of pale which cancer imposes on the skin, and - it may just be my imagination, only more time will tell - but I think my daily spraying of the stuff is now having some, shall we call it, 'merest tint of some colour' effect. So, a result I think.

Anna, keeper of mine and Harold Pinter's nails, says tanning moisturiser is what her assemblage of ritzy clients use. So I'm using the L'Oreal spray in the mornings and the Boots moisturiser as a top-up whenever I remember. I share this with you from deep, deep, deep into my psyche, as Dr Jablonski, author of Skin, A Natural History points out:

“Even though a tan is now associated with pathology, it has had such a profound impact on the American psyche that to be untan is to look as terribly uncool as an unplucked chicken,” said Dr. Jablonski of Penn State. “People tend to think they look healthier if they have some sort of glow on their cheeks.”

Comments

I had a client in my spray tanning salon who was recovering from a skin cancer. She told me that fake tan is extremely important to her, because each time she looks in the mirror and sees that she looks so well and healthy that she believes herself to be healthier than she probably is and acts accordingly.
Power of the mind?
(She has been cancer free now for 2 years.)